Moretti and Falla Mysteries 2-Book Bundle. Jill Downie
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at that shield, but I saw your face. It’s got something to do with dagger handles and that shield thing, you think?”
“Well, I want to keep that to ourselves for a bit. There’s a family aspect to all this we’ve not got a handle on yet — sorry, bad pun. Signora Albarosa showed us that coat of arms of her own accord, and then, suddenly became — or, was it suddenly?”
“She changed her mind, didn’t she? Wished she hadn’t.”
“Yes. When I asked her what her mother was doing here when she’s so proud of her roots. Roots — hold on. I’ve just thought of something. We can drop the car off at Hospital Lane, and walk down to Blondel’s.”
“The grocer’s, Guv?”
“We’ll pick up a bottle of olive oil from the Vannoni estates. I know Blondel’s carry the Vannoni olive oil.”
Blondel’s Grocers were the top such establishment in town, catering to the carriage trade. They stocked most of the luxury products the island uppercrust might require, including a superb range of vintage wines and fine spirits and cigars in their off-licence. Over the years the business had expanded into a couple of supermarkets and more than one joint project with leading banks, such as Barings, but the family had retained the original store between a jewellers and a bookshop on a small street called the Pollett near La Plaiderie.
Moretti and Liz Falla walked down the hill past what had once been the townhome of the De Saumarez family, and was now Moore’s, one of St. Peter Port’s most central hotels. Moretti caught his partner’s wistful glance up the narrow steps that led to Moore’s patisserie.
“Hungry, DC Falla? Me too. We’ll take a break after this.”
“We’re in luck, Guv.” Liz Falla pointed at the window of Blondel’s which was just across the narrow street. “I think there’s a Vannoni bottle in the display.”
The window’s theme was labelled “Harvest Riches.” There were bunches of convincingly realistic plastic grapes, their fabric vine leaves entwined around bottles of wine and various exotic vinegars, and jars of black and green olives, some with the contents spilled out across the space. Among the olives were bottles of olive oil, some of them gigantic, their colour varying from yellow through lime to almost-green.
“There it is, the Vannoni bottle — we’re looking at the shield, right?” said Liz Falla, pointing at one of the more modestly sized bottles.
“Right. There’s one on every bottle — I use their brand. I’ve noticed that much but, like most things one sees everyday, I’ve never really taken a good look at it.”
“From here,” said Liz, her nose almost touching the glass, “it looks just like the one we saw at the manor.”
“From here. But I think not. Let’s take a closer look”
Inside the shop, the warm, complex smell of cheeses, fruit preserves, chocolate, and coffee, mixed with the hospitable fragrance of wines and spirits, reminded both of them they were hungry.
“There you are, Guv. There’s one on the counter.” Liz picked it up. “Looks the same to me. Crown on top, grapes and olives and — just a second, that’s not a snake, is it?”
“No. A dagger.”
“Brilliant, Guv,” said his partner. “Fancy you remembering that.”
“I didn’t, not really, but the quarters up at the manor seemed different to me. Sometimes these heraldic symbols are far from clear — take the balls on the Medici coat of arms, for instance. The French in the sixteenth century spread the rumour they represented poison pills, but nobody really knows what they are.”
Liz Falla nodded sagely. “How come the bottles are different from the shield up at the manor?”
“Remember what Anna Albarosa said about the addition of another coat of arms, when the woman brings her name and fortune into the family? This is what happened here — this shield we’re looking at now is almost certainly the Vannoni coat of arms without the Albarosa addition. And remember what I said about how, like most things you see every day, I’d never really examined it. That, I think, is why Anna Albarosa made the mistake of drawing our attention to the family crest, and then why she got cold feet.”
“Right.” Liz Falla waved across at a well-fed white-coated lady slicing off thickly cut chunks from a succulent roast of pork for an equally well-endowed customer. “Where does this get us? I mean, we have to work out, don’t we, what all this has to do with the attempt on Mr. Ensor, a rack of damaged costumes, and a dead location manager? Sorry, Guv, perhaps you already have.”
“I wish! But we now know for sure that the dagger is not just idiosyncratic or purely decorative. It’s significant. And, second of all — I don’t know. I haven’t yet worked it out. Hello, Mike.”
Mike Le Page, the manager of Blondel’s, was approaching with the look of someone anxious to please, while at the same time hoping to keep any unpleasantness at bay, or at least away from public scrutiny. He was a middle-aged man with the dark hair and eyes that marked his Norman ancestry and, in the midst of constant temptation to overindulge, had managed to keep impressively slim.
“Can I help? Is there a problem? Hello, Liz.”
“None,” Moretti reassured him. “We needed to take a good look at one of the Vannoni olive oil bottles.”
“Terrible business.” Mike Le Page said, shaking his head. “The kitchen staff up there told my delivery man all about it. But why are you looking here?”
Moretti waved a vague hand in the air. “We look into all angles at this stage of the investigation. I imagine you sell the Vannoni brand as much because it’s good as because the marchesa is on the island?”
“Oh yes. We have no dealings with her, but we’ve had some with her niece. She came in and put on a tasting for us once — first time I’ve had as many males as females for a sampling, once word got around. She’s a fine-looking lady, that one. Only, if the stories I hear are true, they were wasting their time. The lads, I mean.”
Mike Le Page gave a knowing laugh.
As Moretti was paying for the bottle of olive oil Mike Le Page said, “Tell you what, Ed, there’s someone who knows more than I do about that lot up at Ste. Madeleine. Dan Mahy. His wife was employed by the family right after they bought the manor. He worked here for years — goes back to the days when we did deliveries by bicycle — but he’s been retired a while now. He lives out at Torteval. Hang on, I’ll get his address for you. We still ask him to our staff get-togethers, although he doesn’t come any longer. But they tell me he still puts in an appearance from time to time at the manor — course, it’s much closer to where he lives than we are. They give him a bite to eat and send him on his way”
Out in the street, Liz Falla said, “Dan Mahy might be a waste of time, Guv. Nutty as a fruitcake, my mother says. Never got over the death of his wife.”
“Talking of fruitcakes, DC Falla, I think we should get some lunch.”
On the other side of the street, a Labrador retriever with his leash fastened around a lamppost began to bark at an approaching collie.
“Dogs, dogs,” said Moretti. “Why didn’t the dog bark in the night?”
“Sorry, Guv, I’m not with you.”
“You know — Sherlock Holmes,” said Moretti, leading the way up the steps past the huge mural painted on the wall of the house adjoining the patisserie. They each ordered a prawn salad and coffee in the restaurant and made their way back outside on to the wide terrace that looked down on a cluster of financial buildings and their closed-circuit cameras.
“Sherlock Holmes, Guv?” asked Liz Falla, pulling in her chair under the shade of the green and white table umbrella advertising Grolsch beer. The cerulean background of the mural behind her nicely complimented the darker blue of her suit. Gamine,